The History of Islam in Africa

The history of the Islamic faith on the continent of Africa spans fourteen centuries. For the first time in a single volume, The History of Islam in Africa presents a detailed historic mapping of the cultural, political, geographic, and religious past of this significant presence on a continent-wide scale. Bringing together two dozen leading scholars, this comprehensive work treats the historical development of the religion in each major region and examines its effects.

Without assuming prior knowledge of the subject on the part of its readers, The History of Islam in Africa is broken down into discrete areas, each devoted to a particular place or theme and each written by experts in that particular arena. The introductory chapters examine the principal "gateways" from abroad through which Islam traditionally has influenced Africans. The following two parts present overviews of Islamic history in West Africa and the Sudanic zone, and in subequatorial Africa. In the final section, the authors discuss important themes that have had an impact on Muslim communiti

Edward A. Alpers is Professor of African History at UCLA. Rene A. Bravmann is Professor of Art at the University of Washington in Seattle. Abdin Chande is Assistant Professor of Islamic and African Studies at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Eric Charry is an Associate Professor in the Music Department at Wesleyan University Allan Christelow is Professor and Chair of the History Department at Idaho State University. Roberta Ann Dunbar is Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Kenneth W. Harrow is Professor of English at Michigan State University. Lansine Kaba is Professor of African and African-American Studies and Dean of the Honors College at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lidwien Kapteijns is Professor of History and Chairwoman of Women's Studies at Wellesley College. Nehemia Levtzion is Bamberger and Fuld Professor of the History of the Muslim Peoples at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. William F. S. Miles is Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University in Boston. David Owusu-Ansah is Professor of History at James Madison University. Michael Pearson is Professor of History at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Randall L. Pouwels is Professor of African History at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas. Stefan Reichmuth is Professor of Islamic Studies at Ruhr-Universitat in Bochum, Germany. David Robinson is University Distinguished Professor of History and African Studies at Michigan State University. Robert C.-H. Shell is Senior Lecturer in the History department and is the Director of the Population Research Unit at Rhodes University in East London, South Africa. Jay Spaulding is a Professor in the Department of History at Keane College of New Jersey in Union, New Jersey. David Sperling is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Jean-Louis Triaud is a historian of African Islamic history and a Professor at the Universite de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, France. Knut S. Vikor is the Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. John Obert Voll is Professor of Islamic History at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he holds a joint appointment in the History Department and in the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Peter von Sivers is Associate Professor of Classical Middle Eastern History at the University of Utah. Ivor Wilks is the Herskovits Professor Emeritus of African Studies, Northwestern University, and holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Wales, Lampeter.